Adele G said: "We’ve temporarily closed new publisher sign ups in the Play Books Partner Center, so we can improve our content management capabilities and our user experience. We’re working to reopen this to new publishers soon. Thanks for your patience."

Current publishers can still log into their accounts and publish new eBooks.

On the bright side, the thieves who get caught selling other authors' eBooks on Google Play Books will have their accounts closed and won't be able to open new accounts for a while.

Update - Aug. 11, 2015: No change. No surprise.

Update - Sept. 26, 2015: Interesting Fortune.com article says Google acquired Oyster's talent for Google Books New York. Oyster, the Netflix for eBooks, is shutting down by the end of the year. It's currently the 2nd leading US eBook subscription service, with about 100,000 subscribers, while Amazon's Kindle Unlimited is estimated to have nearly 2 million subscribers. Now Google has the people needed to get this show on the road.

Update - Dec. 14, 2015: Since Google Play Books hasn't re-opened yet to new publishers, it won't be open before the holidays hit.

Update - Mar. 11, 2016: It seems Google closed Google Play Books Partner Center for new accounts again. They were open to new accounts for at least a week, but I have no idea which date they closed again.